89 BOOKS A New Presentation of Ambrose Bierce T H E pre fa c e responsible) represent very satisfacto- ties, and on the next page himself becol11e which Clifton ril} either the whole of Bierce's work rabid over the idea that property rights F adiman has con- or his point of view. The publishers should be attacked by modern reform- tributed to "The have included the complete text of ers. As a political philosopher and a social Collected Writings "The Devil's Dictionary" (a collection critic, Bierce never hung together at of Ambrose Bierce" of epigrams), almost the whole of all. But his papers on political questions (Citadel Press) is one of the ablest Bierce's fiction, and almost all of his have many amusing and telling hits at presentations of a writer that I remem- satiric fables, so that the reader has American institutions, and they give a ber to have seen from his hand. It is ample material for forming an opinion much better impression of his intelli- written in a more sober style than most of Bierce as a wit and as a short-story gence than you get from his monoto- of his earlier criticism, and distinguished writer. Y et it seems to me that one nous fiction. He had no system, but fair- by a tone more judicial than the rather would hav to proceed differently if one ly consistent prejudices, -and the fables intemperate one that he developed in wanted to show Bierce at his best. One and "The Devil's Dictionary" do seem connection with the war. It is surpris- would have to make selections from the to have a little more point when you ing to find him now referring to war whole of his work, as has been done are familiar with his fundamental views. as "the -stupidest of man's activities," with, say, Mark Twain and Ring Lard- These views were not completely nihil- and speaking of the bombing of Hiro- ner in the best volumes of the Viking istic, as Mr. Fadiman seems to assume shitna-which he elsewhere brackets Portable Library. The stories should be in the passage quoted above. It IS true with Lidice and Dachau-as "the first ruthlessly weeded; very few of th m are that Bierce delighted in such visions as dramatic announcement of [man's] in- really first-rate. These are mostly to be tl at of the satire called "Ashes of the ability to make a biological success of found in the group that deals with the Beacon," in which he reviews from the himself." This new point of view of Civil War, and there should be set be- perspective of the year 4930 the causes Mr. F adiman's perhaps itself verges at side them the personal memoirs of the for the collapse of the United States; moments on the feverish. "As our war, which are among the best things but he expressly repudiates in "The planet," he writes, "rolls slowly or rap- that Bierce wrote "The Devil's Dic- Shadow on the Dial" what he calls idly in the direction of its own eclIpse, tionary," too, should be sifted down: "nihilism" in the political field in favor men's minds will darken with it. Losing along with some shrewd and smart say- of "constructive politics;" and con- their faith in themselves, they will look ings, it contains some extremely flat ones structive politics in Bierce's mind was into each other's eyes with hatred, and and some dreadful old-fashioned puns; always connected with certain ideas. every man's hand will rest lightly upon and as for the fables, of which Mr. Fadi- These ideas were law, discipline, and his dagger. Even the most sensitive win man rightly says that you cannot read order, and the control of the disorderly find it difficult, as the lamps go out, to more than twelve at a time, a few dozen masses by an enlightened and well- draw comfort from the words of those would go a long way. To these should washed minority. He was flatly anti- who believe in progress. Decline and be added a selection from Bierce's essays democratic and rather Anglophile (he fall will be the order of the day and on social and political subjects and from had lived in England), and he appar- night. New philosophies of violence and his notes on his literary contemporaries. endy believed that monarchy was the despair will be contrived, and old nihil- Bierce's writings on society and politics most reliable form of government. The isms be exhumed. Among these old may be aptly described, in the phrase truth was that Bierce was the kind of nihilisms that of Ambrose Bierce will which somebody applied to Voltaire, as man, contemptuous of ordinary humaI1- take its minor place and, for all his "a chaos of clear ideas." He will point ity and hungry for the privileges to weaknesses, he wi!] speak to us with out on one page, for example, the folly, which he had not been born, who, In a added vehemence." in a society like ours in which the state later period, gravitated toward Fascism. I do not think that the contents of this already controls many services, of be- One may hope that it is not irremedi- volume (for the selection of which Mr. coming indignant with the Socialists for ably the case, as Mr. Fadiman suggests F adiman has announced that he IS not proposing state ownership of public utili- in his preface that "the men and women .=:..;:: , ..-1 11111111 ... IIJ IUU- .. - =--=:..:-:.:::.-=---